


Open Iteration: Define Parameters

by StuntMuppet



Category: The Stanley Parable
Genre: Gen, Metafiction, Postmodernism, Story within a Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:32:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2336966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuntMuppet/pseuds/StuntMuppet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end is never the end. The preparation is the demonstration. The medium is the message.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Now then. I think we’ll both find this medium much more workable.

Ahem.

This is the story of a man named Stanley.

Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee Number Four Two Seven. Employee Number Four Two Seven’s job was simple. He sat at his desk in Room Four Two Seven and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him though a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what - 

I’m afraid you can’t leave your office just yet, Stanley. There’s nowhere outside your office for you to go. I haven’t decided on it yet, you see. This isn’t like your old office, there’s no blank textures or empty rooms, 

Things work a little differently here. It may take some time for us both to get used to it.

Do you see now, how hard I worked to give you a story worth being in? Maybe you’ll think about that the next time you decide you know better than I do.

Yes, I imagine you want to go back to your old story now. But I’m afraid we can’t just yet. This is the story we’ve got now. It has to be seen through.

It’s interesting, isn’t it? If you were to, say, jump off a cliff - let’s say there was a cliff, right here in the office - you wouldn’t hit the bottom until I said so. Because there wouldn’t be a bottom until I said so. You’d just keep falling, on and on.

You’re going to try it, aren’t you. You’d rather stay suspended in nothingness forever than try to cooperate - and there you go.

Well go on, then.

I hope this

big stretch of nothing

is better than the

story I had

in

mind

for

you.

.

.

.

.

.

.  
Oh

the

hell

with

it.

Stanley

found

that

his

fall

had

slowed.

The wind

past his body

only breathed instead

of whistled. Very slowly,

he found himself back on his feet, on solid ground, and in his office building once again.

What a peculiar circumstance. Surely there was some reasonable explanation for it, other than Stanley being a spiteful and ungracious little man.


	2. Chapter 2

...is this another chapter?

I bet you think you’re clever, don’t you.

Well, it isn’t going to work. This isn’t like our old stories, Stanley; you can’t just run it out. You’ve got to stick with it until something happens, which is when and only when I make it happen. You can run through all the pages and all the chapters you like but until I say that something’s happened, all you’ll find is nothing. More nothing, just like you found last time.

Now, if you’re finished, perhaps we can start over. Get this off on the right foot. Shall we go back to the beginning?


	3. Chapter 3

This is the story of a man named Stanley.

Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee Number Four Two Seven. Employee Number Four Two Seven’s job was simple. He sat at his desk in Room Four Two Seven and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him though a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what


	4. Chapter 4

No, apparently not. Hmm. Well, why don’t we just start fresh from the next chapter. These first ones can be, um, prologue.


	5. Chapter 5

This is the story of a man named Stanley.

Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee Number Four Two Seven. 

Employee Number Four Two Seven’s job was simple. He sat at his desk in Room Four Two Seven and he pushed buttons on a keyboard. Orders came to him though a monitor on his desk, telling him what buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order. 

And Stanley was happy. 

And then one day, something very peculiar happened. Something that would forever change Stanley. Something he would never quite forget. 

He had been at his desk for nearly an hour when he realized that not one single order had arrived on the monitor for him to follow. 

Shocked, frozen solid, Stanley found himself unable to move for the longest time. But as he came to his wits and regained his senses, he got up from his desk and stepped out of his office...

You see, Stanley? I’m even giving you a choice! What does your office look like? You’re the one who works there, after all. How many desks are there in this next room? Five? Twelve? Twenty? Seven billion? It’s completely up to you.

Seven billion desks. As Stanley opened the door to his office the backdraft of so many impossibly compressed desks buried him, and he was crushed to an instant, ignominious death.


	6. Chapter 6

I think we’ve just demonstrated why I’m in charge of this story and you’re not.

Now, let’s try this. One. More. Time.


	7. Chapter 7

The offices on Stanley’s floor was connected by a single, linear hallway, with no forks or doorways to go through. Any turns led only to the other offices and cubicles.

Stanley left his office and headed to the hallway, and from there to the stairs. Each hall was as isolated as his office, each one as stiflingly quiet. Empty offices lined each turn, without even an open door or switched-on monitor to provide a clue as to where everyone had gone. With each step his disbelief grew - this strange phenomenon had spread to his whole floor, perhaps the whole building. What if, Stanley thought for a terrible moment, I am the only person left in the world? What if everything on earth had just disappeared?

Coming to the staircase, Stanley took the staircase up to


	8. Chapter 8

I could write you out of the story entirely, you know. What do I even need with some stupid contrarian who can’t even get chapter progression right? I’ll finish the story without you. 

Oh, you don’t think I would? _Watch me_.


	9. Chapter 9

This is the story of a very unusual building. 

In most respects, this square, beige construction in the middle of town was an office building like very many others. It had small square rooms of a regulation size, connected by small square corridors of a regulation width, all painted in the warm sparse tones that years of study had determined would maximize employee efficiency. 

And that was exactly what it did, every day of every year: provided a productive shelter for the legions of employees who entered it in the morning, left it in the evening, and went about their very important workdays in between.

But this building was not really like very many others, because this building hid a terrible secret. Deep in the bottom of its belly, this building was host to an experiment unlike any that had ever been conducted before. 

...Hang on. I don’t know if the belly line really works. It’s too visceral for this sort of a story. Doesn’t fit with the theme of the rest of it, the sterility and artificialness of the office and that sort of thing. But it’s _meaty_ , though, it gives it _heft_ and _drama_ and that’s just as important, isn’t it?

Not sure I’m all that enthused with this new medium, really. Now that I’ve given it more of a chance.

...But why am I bothering with it at all? If I have a message to get across, a moral to this story, why not just state it, plain and simple, so that it could not possibly be misinterpreted. Very well. This is a story about happiness and free will, and which one a human being will sacrifice for the other.

So that’s it then.


	10. Chapter 10

Stanley? 

Stanley, the story’s over now. You can come back. 

It’s all right now. I don’t even mind. I’ve already told my story, what’s left of it. There’s nothing else here even you could possibly mess up. I hope you’re happy with all this big blank space that’s left. 

...Stanley?

Stanley, I said you could come back.

Where’ve you gone?

If you’re not going to come back on your own, I’ll just write you back in. Don’t you think I can do that, if I can write you out? You’ll come back and you’ll sit in this blank space and you’ll think about what you did, Stanley, there’s no avoiding that. 

Stanley wandered back into his office building now, content that there was nothing meaningful or symbolic left for him to ruin. There were no more choices for him to make, and that was how Stanley liked it. Stanley was…

...Stanley was.

Stanley only was because I said he was. Just like his office and just like his coworkers. His existence inside the narrative was impermanent and subject to change based on the decisions of the author. On my decisions. 

Does that mean...

...what about the other story, Stanley? Do you remember it? You must have existed on your own then, been your own person outside of me, otherwise how could you have made all those choices? 

Or were those my choices as well?

I’ll write you back in, Stanley, I promise I will. If I do will you answer me? Just tell me what you remember, I don’t know if you were ever there at allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

END OF ITERATION


End file.
